Pride, pain mark Flag Day event

By Sig Christenson - Express-News :
June 14, 2010

Leonard Childs, a member of VFW Post 9603, salutes as a flag is retired during the ceremony at VFW Post 837.

Leonard Childs, a member of VFW Post 9603, salutes as a flag is retired during the ceremony at VFW Post 837.

Sgt. 1st Class Oscar Gracia wore a World War II uniform for a ceremony Monday marking the Army's 235th birthday, but he just as easily could have donned his fatigues from just six years ago, when he was a combat medic.

The year was 2004, he was in Iraq, and the Sunni Triangle was in flames as insurgents rebelled against the U.S.-led occupation.

“On days like this I do think back,” Gracia said.

“It sticks out for me because I know good friends that gave up their lives during that time frame,” he said. “I do my meditation or a little prayer, and remember them on days like this — Memorial Day, Flag, Day, Army's birthday.”

As Fort Sam Houston marked the Army's birthday and America's 233rd Flag Day, some in the crowd took stock of the cost of war.

Retired Army Sgt. Maj. Howard Ray was captured and held as a prisoner of war in Korea for a week in 1951. Staff Sgt. Sherrie Harvey talked of an Iraq veteran who was so tormented by the deaths of good friends that he ultimately left the Army.

The 38 battle steamers Gracia, 37, of Corpus Christi carried to a soldier holding the Army's red and white service flag represented campaigns — 21 yellow and red for those fought in Asia, 16 brown and green for Europe and the Middle East, and one blue and red for the United States. But pride, and pain, can be found in these symbols.

“It's an honor for me to serve under the United States flag. It does signify that today is its birthday ... it represents our freedom,” said Gracia, who served in Gulf War I as a Marine before transferring to the Army.

Gracia and 12 other soldiers marched in period uniforms to Fort Sam's 90-foot-tall main post flagpole on a sunny summer morning, each GI adding streamers from conflicts the Army has fought since the Revolution.

But if battle streamers are like highway mile markers for a nation's history of war, they also symbolize eras of sacrifice for troops young and old, serving and retired.

At 78 and still battling the ravages of frostbite from his captivity, Ray recalled that he was prisoner only a week and joked, “I ate them out of house and home, but don't tell anybody.” He was captured by insurgents who, after deciding not to kill the Americans, marched them back to their battle lines.

Ray caught a big break. Prisoners often were executed on the spot in the Korean War's first brutal and chaotic months, but he still paid a price for falling into enemy hands. Combat boots and heavy clothing were valuable commodities that icy winter, and he was forced to go barefoot.

“I had severe frostbite on my feet. It's there and you know my right foot has deteriorated more than my left foot, but I'm still able to use them,” Ray said. “Because of the pain they offered to fuse the toes together ... and I said no thank you, I'll keep bending them a little bit until I can't use them anymore.”

Harvey, a behavioral health specialist, cared for a staff sergeant who was so traumatized by his year in Iraq, 2006, that he called in sick most days.

“When I would talk to him, when he would come to the clinic, he said he was just so angry all the time with what he saw, what he experienced, the nightmares, the dreams,” Harvey, 46, said. “He was just angry all the time.”